June  3

Today's 53-mile ride was mostly about getting from Point A to Point B. I had originally hoped to ride the I&M Canal towpath from Ottawa to its beginning at the village of Rockdale, near Joliet. My experience yesterday changed my mind. I decided to take roads that ran near the canal.

I did check the towpath's conditions at a few access points along the route, and they were always bad. In a couple of places, the path was just a wide swath of grass. In a few places it appeared to have been mowed. In other places the grass was several inches high.

I was a little excited at the start. Part of my route included the eight-mile road from Ottawa to Marseilles (pronounced mar-SALES). When I worked in Ottawa, I loved this road. It runs along the top of the Illinois River's flood plain, right up against the bluffs, so it often has very little wind. I can remember riding it when it was so calm it almost felt like I was in a vacuum. For almost its entire length from Marseilles to Ottawa it has a gradual, downhill pitch. And the pavement then was — and still is! — very smooth.  I would go for rides to Marseilles just so I could turn around and come flying back to Ottawa, spinning in my biggest gear and reaching speeds of 30 MPH plus.

On this trip I was going east — very gradually uphill — but when I made the turn from Green Street in Ottawa onto Marseilles Road (it's officially County Road 51) it was like meeting an old friend. "I remember you!"

I felt so good I decided to turn on the playlist of songs I put together for this trip. I had the volume all the way up on my phone, which is attached to a bracket on my handlebars.

(By the way, I just noticed that one of my apps has pretty decent maps that record where I ride. So, from now on, I will try to incorporate them into my posts so you have an idea of where I went and where I am.)

Rather than have a convenience-store lunch, I decided to stop in the city of Morris. I had seen a reference to its quaint downtown and a restaurant serving locally sourced food called Weit's Cafe. I ordered the Chicken Salad Croissant with cole slaw and a lemonade. The waitress brought everything promptly. I ate everything quickly. And I soon was out the door and back on my bike.

The day was perfect. Temperatures were in the low 70s, with little wind and few clouds. The ride along the river was beautiful.

At one time I noticed a barge moving slowly downriver. We used to see them all the time when I was a kid and didn't think much about them. This one seemed to have a majestic quality about it. My picture doesn't do it justice.                                                                                                           

I continued to Rockdale. It had been a great day and I was ready to roll up to my hotel, but I ran into a bit of a challenge. I was staying at the Baymont Inn, located near a cloverleaf interchange for Interstate 80. I was just a mile away. I could see the sign, but the direct route there involved climbing a very steep overpass with heavy traffic — a lot of trucks — and entrance and exit ramps for I-80. I could have ventured up the hill, but I would have had to shift into my lowest gears to make it to the top. I'd be moving so slowly that I would have been an obstacle in the road and the object of a lot of swearing. (I've been in that situation before on this trip and it was not fun. I decided to look for an alternative before subjecting myself to that experience again.)

I studied my maps for a long time and decided to take a route through a residential area. I discovered I still had to climb a very steep hill — spinning crazily in my lowest gear to get to the top — but there was less traffic to worry about.

Google Maps caught up with what I was doing and recommended I turn down a road that looked like a fairly straight route to the hotel. When I got there, however, the road was actually a driveway on a middle-school's property. It was a one-way going in the opposite direction I needed to go, and part of it was lined with cars of parents coming to pick up kids at the end of the school day.

I stopped and studied the map on my app for several minutes. The only other alternative I could find involved riding an extra mile on three very busy streets. So, I very slowly rode against the flow of the parents' cars, hugging the curb and mouthing "Sorry! I'm sorry!" to the motorists as I moved past them. I inched past a school official directing traffic, who I expected to give me grief, but she didn't say anything. Instead of that straight-line mile of terror I first encountered,  I went two miles, which took me an hour.

 I got to my hotel, ordered a Domino's delivery and called it a night.

Contact me: Thoughts or comments? Email me at richardridesusa@gmail.com.

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